lways enjoyed with Forrestal,
the Navy was suddenly confronted with a new Secretary of Defense who
bluntly noted its "lack of any response" to his 6 April directive,
thus putting the Navy in the same league as the Army.

Secretary Johnson's rejection of the Navy's response made a
reexamination of its race program imperative, but it was still
reluctant to follow the Fahy Committee's proposals completely.
Although the personnel bureau had already planned special recruitment
programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the Navy and the mental
requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers out of
chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches
of BuPers," Capt. Fred Stickney of the bureau admitted to a
representative of the committee. Stickney was confident that the
bureau's opposition to this change could be surmounted, but he was not
so sure that the Navy would surrender on the issue of equality of
enlistment standards. The committee's arguments to the contrary, the
Navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for
all the services would mean "lowering the calibre of men taken into
the Navy."[14-60]

[Footnote 14-60: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 24 May 49, FC
file.]

But even here the Navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. Replying to
the Secretary of Defense a second time on 23 May, Acting Secretary Dan
Kimball committed the Navy to a program that incorporated to a great
extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, including raising
the status of chief stewards and integrating recruit training in the
Marine Corps. While he did not agree with the committee's proposal for
equality of enlistment standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition
to the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to
study the issue to determine where men who scored less than forty-five
(the equivalent of General Classification Test score ninety) could be
used without detriment to the Navy.[14-61]

[Footnote 14-61: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 23 May
49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, FC file.]

The question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the Navy's
program generally followed the suggestions of the Fahy Committee, and
Chairman Reid urged Johnson to accept it.[14-62] The secretary's
acceptance was announced on 7 June and was widely repor